Potential value of health information exchange for people with epilepsy: crossover patterns and missing clinical data.

CONTEXT

For people with epilepsy, the potential value of health information exchange (HIE) is unknown.

METHODS

We reviewed two years of clinical encounters for 8055 people with epilepsy from seven Manhattan hospitals. We created network graphs illustrating crossover among these hospitals for multiple encounter types, and calculated a novel metric of care fragmentation: "encounters at risk for missing clinical data."

RESULTS

Given two hospitals, a median of 109 [range 46 - 588] patients with epilepsy had visited both. Due to this crossover, recent, relevant clinical data may be missing at the time of care frequently (44.8% of ED encounters, 34.5% inpatient, 24.9% outpatient, and 23.2% radiology). Though a smaller percentage of outpatient encounters were at risk for missing data than ED encounters, the absolute number of outpatient encounters at risk was three times higher (14,579 vs. 5041).

CONCLUSION

People with epilepsy may benefit from HIE. Future HIE initiatives should prioritize outpatient access.